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This will likely get flagged as duplicate to the highly contentious previous thread[1], but I hope it doesn't since the other thread was a mess. It seems that

This will likely get flagged as duplicate to the highly contentious previous thread[1], but I hope it doesn't since the other thread was a mess. It seems that in any climate change thread, many if not most of the comments get downvoted, much more to an extent than other topics. Could someone scan the 50+ comment climate change posts and compare the controversial comment ratio (e.g. number of greyed-out vs non-greyed-out comments) and compare it to other types of 50+ comment posts? If the ratio is much higher for climate change posts, it seems like there's something nefarious going on (brigading, astroturfing, etc.). [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19897250 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19897250

dang 7y ago
The site guidelines ask you not to make insinuations about things like astroturfing and brigading. People typically reach for those explanations to account for behavior they dislike, like people expressing an opposing view, when a much simpler explanation almost always suffices: divisive topics are divisive. If you're really concerned about it you can email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data. But please avoid casual insinuations of nefariousness, because those are a problem in their own right—they erode community. And from everything I've seen, having looked at it a lot, this is actually a much bigger problem than the underlying phenomenon people are worrying about. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html I've written about this a lot if anyone wants more: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=by:dang%20astroturfing https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
southern_cross 7y ago
I know HN likes to pretend that it holds things to a higher standard, but in the past I've seen censorship rates of up to 50% on similar threads. (That is, such a thread might show that it has 100 comments, but only 50 are still viewable. And not greyed-out, but just plain old gone.) Which is at least somewhat better than Reddit, where I've seen censorship rates of up to 90%.

dang 7y ago

The site guidelines ask you not to make insinuations about things like astroturfing and brigading. People typically reach for those explanations to account for behavior they dislike, like people expressing an opposing view, when a much simpler explanation almost always suffices: divisive topics are divisive. If you're really concerned about it you can email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data. But please avoid casual insinuations of nefariousness, because those are a problem in their own right—they erode community. And from everything I've seen, having looked at it a lot, this is actually a much bigger problem than the underlying phenomenon people are worrying about. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html I've written about this a lot if anyone wants more: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=by:dang%20astroturfing https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

southern_cross 7y ago

I know HN likes to pretend that it holds things to a higher standard, but in the past I've seen censorship rates of up to 50% on similar threads. (That is, such a thread might show that it has 100 comments, but only 50 are still viewable. And not greyed-out, but just plain old gone.) Which is at least somewhat better than Reddit, where I've seen censorship rates of up to 90%.